Junior guard Ayumi Ishikawa wanted to increase her scoring this season for Streamwood.
Ishikawa has done just that, averaging 15.3 points, but what stands out is how she’s producing those points. She’s honed her knack for creativity while being more consistent with her 3-pointer.
And she’s still getting her customary points off steals, turning herself into a versatile scorer.
“The pull-up or a fadeaway, they don’t expect that,” Ishikawa said. “Those are the shots I work on. I feel like in girls basketball, those shots aren’t really expected. It’s harder to guard.
“I’m really consistent with those shots, so I just practice them a lot.”
Ishikawa pulled out her whole bag of scoring tricks Tuesday night, finishing one shy of a career high with 27 points for the Sabres in a 58-43 Upstate Eight West win over host West Aurora.
Karen Mendez scored 12 points for Streamwood (12-5, 6-2), while Brianna Coffey added seven points and 10 rebounds. Aniyah Stewart paced West Aurora (6-12, 4-5) with 11 points and 12 rebounds off the bench. Dynasty Logan tallied eight points.
Ishikawa mixed it up all night. She hit a runner in the lane, a fadeaway on the wing and a pull-up jumper on the baseline Tuesday.
“She’s the type of kid that stays after practice as long as we let her to work on different angles, pulling up from three,” Streamwood coach Samuel Kruel said. “She got hot.
“When that happens and she gets into the flow and finding her touch, she’s incredible.”
West Aurora coach Teresa Waldinger noted how hard it is to guard someone who’s comfortable with the array of shots that Ishikawa has.
“She’s a great little athlete,” Waldinger said. “I give her a lot of credit. She can get it to the hoop. She can obviously hit it from the outside. We tried several different players on her.
“She was really giving it to us on both ends.”
That’s the other thing that stands out about Ishikawa’s game. She’s averaging over five steals.
“She’s got some of the quickest hands I’ve ever seen,” Kruel said. “And it’s not just the hands — it’s the IQ. She knows that if you can’t go left, she’s going to force you left, and as soon as you try to go back to the right, we’re off to the races going the other way.
“It’s the IQ mixed with the quickness and the hard work. You don’t get a whole lot of players like that.”
West Aurora had 24 of its 27 turnovers in the first three quarters, and Ishikawa was a big reason for that. She totaled six steals, helping Streamwood build a 47-25 lead after three quarters.
The Blackhawks still hung around, though. They cut down the turnovers in slicing the deficit down to 13 at one point in the fourth.
“I was pretty proud with how we were finishing,” Waldinger said. “We obviously had way too many turnovers in the first half, so we tried to adjust that, tried to stop their shooters.”
Ishikawa also was prepared for her jump up in production, and the results are showing.
“I think a lot of it has to do with a lot of the seniors leaving,” Ishikawa said. “They were a big part of our team, so I had to take a step up and score a little bit more and be more effective.
“I’m just more aggressive.”
Kruel has enjoyed watching that progression.
“She’s making herself dangerous from everywhere on the court,” Kruel said. “She just keeps getting better year after year, and that’s just a testament to how hard she works.
“She’s constantly wanting to get better, and that’s very admirable.”
Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.